 So this is our show, Human Human Architecture on Fink Tech, Hawaii. And us is using an old 1930s movie theme, and then there was a remake in 1955, because I know you, the Soto, are interested in that. And this is the three from the gas station, the Drei von der Tankstelle. This is the three bald guys from the gas station. And this is you, the Soto Brown, in your Ossipoff design home in Diamond Head. And it's you, Mehto Blatt. Here with us on the island, not in Boston, where you usually working wise, are back in your second home in Kailua, Oahu, Hawaii. Welcome back, guys. Good to see everybody. All right. And this would be a reason for celebrating, because we are... This is our 300 Human Human Architecture show. And you just sort of pushed us just over the 16,000 accumulated viewer shows with your shows of the last weeks, which are very popular, rightly so for being good, but also rightly for a very tragic reason. And if we have the first slide up, which I guess we have, we already see why, because we cannot not talk about the tragic reason that Lahaina just totally got destroyed. The community of Lahaina on Maui and many people got killed and many got displaced. So this is the background that we will pick up upon. And we had left last time when we were together at the top, we see the two projects that we wanted to basically phase out with Mehto about sort of looking at the past and into a prospect of the future of our islands with these two homes, one being the Lily's Strain House and the other one being the one you are broadcasting from, Meht, your in-laws house there. And, you know, they both wouldn't be anymore if they would have been in Lahaina because they're both stick frame, light frame, wood construction. So today, let's try to sort of... You've been doing Remembering Lahaina, looking at the past. We call this here Membring Lahaina, Looking Into the Future. And it's sort of a touchy try. And we just want to brainstorm and reshuffle some of the thoughts we already had in the past and see them some new and have some brainstorming sort of unbiased and unconditional because, you know, there's a lot of, OK, when should we rebuild? Will we rebuild? Did we give enough time for briefing all these questions? And how do we rebuild? And there were some rumors and one of them got reasonably confirmed. We will share more. But Senator Stanley Chang always feeds us right before our shows with his newsletter. And he has a quote to a TV local KHON TV coverage about some of the shelters they're flying in, the military flies them in and their pre-made, collapsible metal insulated shacks that they make into temporary housing, which is well meant. But we want to throw out if it's the right thing because it's a it's a re welcoming to the missionary housing of her medic, the Western standard that might we might want to take a chance of revisiting or reconnecting more to sort of neo-indigenous roots. So that being said, let's bring up the first slide. And this is someone joining us, rejoining us. Our exotic escapism expert Susanna is broadening up the mind to other places in the world. My colleagues are currently having guest speakers in from Tahiti, my academic colleagues and from post Katrina and also from other places to settle. Let's start out because this is our sibling island chain as as we are the the Polynesian island chain. There is the Macaronnesian and we have covered many of them and also parallel to us. There is on the island on Tenerife, there is a similar thing going on. And that's quoting at the top left, also from the star appetizer. That's on Tenerife, which we have a big similar fire going wild, blasting and the pictures. This is a selection of what Suzanne has shared with us. And let's just brainstorm on the ideas or your thoughts, your emotions about what you see, what maybe is different on. And this is the island of the Azores, by the way. The Azores are governed by Portugal as Madera is that we have done a lot of coverages, which are shown at the second from the bottom left. But this is the Azores. So what do these images trigger similarities and differences and what we can learn from for a for a rebuilding on Maui guys? Let's just get the brainstorming started. I'm thinking there are various concepts to be taken into account here. And of course, first of all, there needs to be housing right away to house the people who've been displaced because hundreds of homes were destroyed. The rebuilding process, what is that going to entail? And is the zoning going to change, for example, so that buildings are pulled back from the shore so that they are no longer dealing as much with the rise of the ocean levels? That's already been a problem along that coastline. And for economic reasons, the, well, Hina was an attraction which earned a great deal of money. Economically, it's very important. Part of its attraction was that it was housed in old, charming looking buildings and the newer buildings were built to fit in with those older buildings, mostly from the early 20th century. So the commercial district, is it, do they try to replicate buildings? Do they try to create a similar feeling? Do they do some dramatic changes to the entire layout of the town so that, for example, Front Street becomes a pedestrian street rather than a vehicular street? All of these things are very long-term questions. And the other thing, too, is there are historic buildings in Lahaino, or there were, some are completely destroyed because they were made of wood, and others survive as gutted walls. Do those get rebuilt, and are they, in fact, even stable enough to rebuild and reuse? So I'm just asking questions. I don't have necessarily answers for these, but these are concerns that come to my mind, particularly, of course, being the historian and looking back at what we have lost. Matt, what do you think? Can some of the images we show here sort of trigger some ideas of what to borrow from a fellow volcanic island? Because that's what the, all these islands, the ones that are governed by Spain, which is Gran Canaria and Tenerife and Lanzarote and the like, and the ones by Portugal, which is Madeira and the Azores. And this is from the Azores. So something that we see here that maybe we can learn from them? What do you think? I mean, I can't help but thinking that this is, I think you don't want to generalize too much, but it's difficult not to see all of these events as somehow connected to the consequences of exactly the kind of behavior that we've talked about in this program endlessly, the kind of reliance on fossil fuels, the reliance on fossil fuel driven transportation, the need to find more sustainable ways to develop and to build. And certainly, it's too early to, I think, probably talk about specifics in La Jaina or any of these places. But, I mean, I think, you know, Disoto touched on the point, you know, do you think about the sort of the urban situation there differently in the context of, you know, trying to make it less automobile centric and potentially less energy dense? I think all of these things are the sort of the dryness that led to these fires. And even here on Oahu, we were just up at an orchid farm yesterday here, and the owner was telling us he hasn't seen, when he moved here in the 80s on the west side of Oahu, it was wet all the time. He said it was just, it was constantly wet. And now everything is brown and dry. And, you know, he hardly has to mow the lawn. It just basically, it just breaks off. It's so dry. And plants that he's importing from the big island don't survive here anymore. They turn yellow and die. All the signs that all of these things are indicative of a larger global problem that I think we've been arguing people need to pay much more careful attention to. And I think this is, unfortunately, it's very difficult not to imagine that this is a product of that, of those circumstances. And talking that global, I mean, this is this is on the other side of the world, right? But an island chain with similar conditions. So for the two points you touched on, Matt, one is that the very bottom left is a show called De Soto from our volcanic volume show. We were pointing out, you know, building with what we're made of is lava. And you see the in the four images there, the top left one, you see that the harbor ocean front is actually basically paved with salt. And that is, you know, keeping, keeping there, there is no vegetation, there is so nothing can burn. Of course, it shows a different in climate because black is basically absorbing the heat. So the Azores have a different climate. It's not quite as hot. So it's not so much of a prominent effect in the winter is that might actually keep you warm, which happens here too, with some of the boulders that you see on the harbors. If in the wintertime, you sit on them at at dusk, they kind of keep you warm, right? So that's sort of one thing. But at the bottom left, the show quote, this is El Cerro, which is one of the Canary Islands ones that we identified as a great role model along the lines of what you pointed out, Matt, because a politician there over decades, being an engineer that we said shooting ourselves in their feet as architects are often the better architects. He has been pushing and pushing through different political leaderships, relentless for making this island of El Cerro a sustainable off the grid, decarbonized island and he has been successful. And so that is a great role model. And one of the one of the means and methods is what you see in there, which you also see behind Suzanne there on the other island of the Azores is hydroelectric power with water basins in the mountains that you use both for powering yourself and as well as a water reservoir for keeping yourself hydrated and wet. Also at the top right is sort of what I learned from you because you had said, while I witnessed with a having accompanied one of my non traditional students who was making a living to study for the two high fees that we charge him unfortunately at school, he did charter flights for tourists and he had a German on board that he wanted me to translate. And we flew over Maui to pick up with fuel. And I took a picture which I forget to put in but I should at some point of the last day of the chimney smoking of the last sugarcane in the middle there. It's gone now and you taught me to solo what kind of an impact that had please reiterate that. Well, there have been a variety of changes because of the loss of large scale agriculture, but the most relevant one for us in discussing Lahaina is the slopes uphill from Lahaina used to all be in cultivation as sugarcane fields. And while sugarcane fields were burned intentionally before harvesting those burns were all kept under control because people were watching for them. They had equipment to keep the fire under control and so forth. When the sugar industry ended those irrigated fields of green sugarcane went away. And what was left were open land that just grew up with introduced vegetation that's very flammable. So in the winter it grows and it's green and in the summer it dries out and dies and then it burns. So this is what happened. The fire got started and the winds was so strong that it just was pushed down into populated Lahaina and it was out of control and nobody could stop it until it burned everything. Yeah, so what Suzanne gives us that's food for thought literally and figuratively speaking at the bottom right, they on the Azores still have pineapple here there to grow and we need to get more sustaining ourselves. So maybe we bring back some of that agriculture, not as cash crop but actually to feed ourselves right. So that would be an idea because currently the only cash crop that is left is as you pointed out the Soto hospitality right. And that's a double sided sword getting even more architecturally but these thoughts were important because you got to start as you also pointed out Matt architecture is sort of sort of the end but you got to start earlier in a more macro context in agriculture in land use in vegetation are before you get to the build environment but when you get to the build environment maybe the natural environment also plays a more integrated role as we see at the top right from Suzanne as they have their buildings been greened right. So that helps keeping the buildings cooled because they're shading you know and where we come from and you met in parts have to return to my other side my original German and unfortunately two few days already and where you got to Boston where you lead the firm of banish where that comes from Germany and has its major branches in Germany right. You could do this in Germany which is one of your favorite projects the Soto that I showed you from one of the faculty at the technical the University of Munich which is student housing and reiterate that. Well this is a very clever building I thought it was just a not a very tall one several stories tall it was student housing but the exterior was covered by a metal mesh and on it was growing a vine which is a deciduous vine that is actually from the United States but it was being grown in Germany and it not only it covers the building during the summer with leaves and so you have shading and during the winter it's deciduous it sheds its leaves so you have sun in the winter when you want to get warmed up and it also has the attractiveness of the quality of all of its leaves turning bright red in the fall before they fall off so it's just a little visual thing that adds to that but this is just yes growing plants is easy to do and either they cling to the building themselves or they are planted around the building to provide shade now I do have to say that in the case of Lahaina as well as other fire prone areas you are advised not to plant directly next to the house because that's more fuel to to light your house on fire but Martin you and I have discussed and we just have touched on a little bit the idea that you build back non-flammably and you build back with new technologies that are using things that don't burn in ways that we haven't done yet and Lahaina is an opportunity for us to explore the use of basalts which you just mentioned and the use of stone or aerated concrete that is a product that not only doesn't burn but it doesn't retain heat and that's very important in a very hot climate of Lahaina but again if we build back so that we can't burn we're never going to have another disaster exactly like this one yeah and per the point of what they're currently doing with a with a prefab you know being flown in metal shacks let's just stay with a material of metal as a as an alternative and revisit one of the recent proposals we have been throwing out and that gets us to the next slide and this is I mean there's always the question yeah if you ask for people you know I was watching a movie yesterday with one eye and one side of the brain I think the last face it was called and so you know there was the actor was it's a larger different story but it's about in Africa and all the racism and all the war and the civil rights and that stuff but anyway so she basically says you know displaced people and refugees we look at them as you know these kind of stranded people but they're actually just people like you and I who used to be you know what you and I were doing but I think you know if the the larger I mean it's particularly tragic because now all the lives lost and their needs for shelter just adds to the already large need of displaced people economically displaced people and here I was consulting a an expert who's my banker Lindy from my university of white credit union who we pay too little money unfortunately so she is is is an expert in a tragic way and she's also my hero because of that because she's a single mom who lives in social housing she's a breast cancer survivor and she had lived as we call transitionally in a car with her daughter for two years so when they first throughout sort of metal building community on sand island as we see at the top right being sort of you know orchestrated in this sort of more sentimental wagon wheel radiating out around a central holly which is again well meant but does not take into consideration how do these feel are you getting basically baked in them because the sun is so hot I sat down with Lindy as the expert and we were fleshing out this here which gets us to the next slide which we then developed with multiple generations here which we call the cargo courtyard cabana which we revisited and several shows as we see here which is basically using I avoid saying shipping containers because then people already have a preconceived mind but cargo steel as a material and cutting them out to the north and lining them up in a row having their southern facade of the neighboring basically vegetated and also throwing dirt on the roof and and vegetating it this is using the all-american buy one and get one free system because your neighboring container becomes your trellis and your enclosure of your courtyard so this is buying you the container is 40 by a 320 square feet which are covered but since we're in hawaii you can open it up and then close it with a curtain if you want so and you get the same 320 square feet outside you get 640 square feet for whatever the market rate of a shipping container just like with fish it changes from a daily day-to-day basis based upon the demand it was three thousand dollars and that is a that is a budget number that we will revisit because bunded had taken it on as a very low budget for a proposal that he has been doing that we're going to share soon not this time anymore because we're going to get six minutes left but that is a proposal again in you could you know ship these in easily fastly just cut out the the three fifth on one side and we believe you get a more tropical exotic way of living that keeps you cool because it's insulated but not sort of in a western way but in the more sort of a local way and it gives you a slice of paradise of the sky of hawaii in your courtyard it also gives you privacy versus also giving you community you know collectiveness when you know the the seating and the ends of the container provide you you know provide you that so it's just throwing out an alternative basically based on the same material of metal that is basically inflammable but when you know a rage of fire hits it you know it's also going to be not just you know secure you but it's it's we think a tropical exotic way of shelter versus a more invasive one that's at least my thought because i'm biased because i created this with an emerging generation but you know i wonder if there's oh go ahead go ahead man no i was going to say i wonder if there's a way to actually cross-ventilate this like this and the could you have openings on the back side where the green is like high up or something to kind of get you know breezes moving through the through the thing absolutely and we also open the ends of the container i mean the one end is naturally open the way the container is constructed right and we use the doors of the container to enclose the courtyard and then you infill you know wooden louvers that you can adjust and the other end you would basically cut open so actually get also cross breeze from the sides and orientation is key right if you place them according to solar as all the major cities in the world have been before we invented fossil fuel right every city in the world it was a world roman chinese whatever european the courtyard was the theme and it was all orientated towards the sun to either embrace the sun in a temperate climate or to protect yourself from the sun in more tropical climates and this orientation then basically makes the north eastern trade winds basically flush through the opening on the end of the container so absolutely rightly so this is uh this is the idea let's use the last four minutes to introduce another potential and that's the next slide and this is highly provocative because um many will think of this being substandard potentially and and this is when our client desoto who is philip moiser who charged us with writing a book that we necessarily have to catch up on about the architecture of hawaii and when we drove by this here which is in waimanalo he basically says well i'm not telling you what to do but i would make these one of the projects being featured in the book and we will right because this is how several indigenous people basically don't see another way as to take care of their being them being sheltered what are your thoughts on that well that's absolutely true and there there are various ways to think about this and one of the things that i've learned from you is to think outside the box in terms of building things and one of the things that you've talked me is the use of cabling and the use of fabric and or some kind of uh like a fabric substance to create to create buildings and that's not something i would normally have thought about this is emergency housing using whatever you can scrounge but there are ways to use the same sort of concept of cabling up fabric to create buildings which not only are going to be comfortable and something that people want to live in but it's also something that i think in some cases you can do a lot quicker and you're not necessarily using as much material to build them so while this is actually a tragic economic site if we go from what the concept is i think there are other things to think about that are potentially useful let's throw the next slide in for that and two minutes left met what are your thoughts on which bucky fuller calls tensegrity by the way right so it's not using gravity as one of the ideas we this auto you said inspired by the azores saying using more of the basalt that we have maybe in a stereotypic way meaning stone on stone so to speak but this is the other end this is you know this is what spiders do to weave right and and as you said use as little and one of the founders you know founding projects of your firm met is based upon that that's gunter banish olympics in munich in 72 right that's one of the if not the prime the best example of tensegrity so one minute left now i i i drive by that i camp in every day whenever we can we always take the right the road through wamanalo into town and i actually i find it at some level totally appropriate that the people who inhabit those things have done so have actually reclaimed the sort of the best land on the island right after i mean i don't know exactly who was in there and so forth but then but the idea that you know people people without the means to house themselves have kind of at least been able to kind of claim the best property on the island right and and so there's certainly something there to explore and i think that these kind of lightweight structures that maybe don't trouble people as much because they don't necessarily i mean i think there's their bigger questions about security and safety and also infrastructure that encampments like this bring up right that i think have to be dealt with and solved it's it's never quite as simple as just throwing a tent up and living a happy life but i think those are i think these are all things particularly in this climate that you do have to you can that you have to think about and consider all right we're at the end of the time to sort of you just gave me an idea that i'm going to weave into the next week when we pick up from here this is an exciting and i think you know kind of an itchy but so not easy at all but very relevant discussion to have so let's pick up from there next week and until then please stay sophisticatedly safe safely sophisticated bye bye